


red tongues and hands

by noiselesspatientspider (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Hair, Interlude, Kink Meme, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-The Sign of Three, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-His Last Vow, Season/Series 03, Vignette, i continue to be unable to write happy fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 06:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2099091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/noiselesspatientspider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as a response to a prompt on the kinkmeme: " Sherlock loses his hair as a stress response, after the wedding, when post-hiatus PTSD really starts to kick in. Gen."</p>
            </blockquote>





	red tongues and hands

John is smiling in his best suit, Mary at his side. They have matching wrinkles at the corners of their eyes. Together, they raise John’s Browning and shoot the wedding cake, which explodes, spattering blood everywhere. John and Mary are laughing, smashing cake in each other’s faces. There is blood all over the floor, gushing crimson from the wreckage of the cake. John licks his red, red lips, and turns to grin at Sherlock. He looks like ruin. He looks like a crime scene, and Sherlock can’t breathe. Then John (who is wearing Jovan Glina’s face) shoots him in the heart.

He wakes up in a lake of his own sweat. There is blood on his pillow, drying tacky from where he’d bitten his lip in his sleep. He hesitates before filing the nightmare with the others, one room over from where Moriarty is sleeping. (It ought to be with John, because Sherlock will always take whatever John has to give him, whether it be Chinese takeout or a 9mm bullet. But he cannot fix the slow unraveling of his mind without staying objective.)

He finds that he is shuddering uncontrollably. Interesting. (Hateful.) His hands shake as he strips the sheets from his bed and dumps them in the laundry chute. It’s fine. He’s fine.

In the bathroom, he tries not to look to closely at his naked body. The light on the bruises that still bloom across his torso is harsh and familiar in all the wrong ways. Sherlock turns the shower as hot as he can stand and scrubs at his scalp, as if he could wash himself whole again. It’s foolish. He’s being foolish. He brings his hands away to grab the shampoo, and finds them full of clumps of hair.

Sherlock has always has an impeccable sense of the passage of time. It has saved his life on at least three occasions. But he has no idea how long he stands in that shower, his shoulders slightly hunched, his hands splayed out in front of him.

When he discovers that the water is beating icy against his back, he steps out of the tub. He dries off, slowly, methodically, gently rubbing at his head. The towel is splotchy with black when he brings it away. He swallows once, twice, then methodically picks all of the strands out of the drain and the tub floor. It would never do for the plumbing to back up. Mrs. Hudson would be upset.

He does not look through the mats of hair to see if any of them are John’s. It’s been three years. (He can’t help if his eyes scan the stuff involuntarily.)

When all the hair is bagged up, he bins it. It might have been useful for experiments, but he can’t leave it around. John might come by, and find it, and -- what does Sherlock expect him to do, exactly? Send him to Ella? Promise not to _leave?_

He leaves the medicine cabinet wide open so that he can’t see his reflection.

Upstairs there’s a wig he’d worn while his hair dye had been growing out. Fortunately, John didn’t damage it while knocking him about, that first disastrous night. He doesn’t think about the last time he put this cap on, about his hands trembling with excitement while sliding pins into their proper place. He’d been putting Sherlock Holmes back on at last, so eager to go and find John. Because then everything would be alright. He doesn’t think about it, really. (Some memories resist deletion.)

He goes down and opens his laptop to check his email. According to Lisa Wiggins, Charles Augustus Magnussen has been spotted leaving Downing Street.

“Ah,” he says, his lips spreading in what might be a smile, if all a smile required was the exposure of teeth. He leans forward and begins to type. “The game is on.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's perhaps less gen than OP was looking for, for which I sincerely apologize. The story got away from me a little!
> 
> Bonus points to anyone who figures out who Jovan Glina is.


End file.
